It started with a phone call. “Jim, I have a lead on an international club”
said Optimist International www.optimist.org
President Dave Bruns. “I’ll send you an email with the info, he’s
from Thailand.” And so would begin a little more than eight-month project to
establish an Optimist Club in Bangkok.
Tony ( tony@blackhatgolf.com)
is with the Thailand Junior Golf Guardian Association. The connection was made at The Optimist. It is
one of the premier junior golf championships in the United States drawing
competitors from countries in Europe, Asia and South America. Past Champions include Tiger Woods, David
Toms, Ernie Els and Notah Begay III. Tony has accompanied teams from Thailand every
summer for the last several years to West Palm Beach, Florida for the competition. He wanted an Optimist presence in the “Kingdom”.
International development is a different animal. It takes time and usually a lot of it to go
from getting the contact information to what happened May 6th in
Bangkok when via SKYPE, a new Optimist club was formed. This is especially true
when all of the development was done electronically (I hope some day to visit
the club) I would wait for email replies and Tony would do the same. The 12-hour time difference had to be
overcome, exchange rates had to be learned and there are always cultural
considerations to take into account. Iowa
is not like Bangkok and Bangkok is not like Iowa. Scheduling was also an issue and it turns out
the effort this month was the third attempt to get everything together.
But the positives in this instance far outweigh the
occasional hiccups along the way. It is
and was a truly eye opening and exhilarating experience. To work with people halfway around the world
who share similar values through a desire to help young people is a project
more of us should be involved in. All it
takes is some time…and a willingness to develop a positive relationship with
someone who you may never meet in person. Those ingredients help make the final
product really worthwhile.
So much so that tackling the next projects waiting in the
wings (Morocco, Great Britain, Australia, India, Senegal, Germany and Holland)
means there are more exciting times ahead.
You can help the cause too by letting me know of international contacts
you have who might entertain the notion of bringing the Optimists to their
corner of the world. jim.boyd@optimist.org
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